Luís Montenegro explained that, in relation to the current pension system, “it is the purpose of this Government to study the system in this legislature and possibly propose changes for another legislature regarding its sustainability”.

Montenegro, faced with Raimundo's accusations, said that the accusation that the Government wants to change early retirements is not serious and has no basis, remembering that this was not the intention “at any time”.

The Prime Minister also assured that this change, if it happens, will be made after new legislative elections and after the government communicates this intention to the country and sees its legitimacy renewed at the polls.

“If we have any ideas to change, we will submit them to the people’s approval. We don't do it behind the people's backs, sir. The honourable member is upset because the Government is not going to do anything in this legislature”, Montenegro said in the direction of the socialist leader, Pedro Nuno Santos, who was protesting during the Prime Minister’s response.

Although he was responding to Paulo Raimundo, the Government leader dedicated part of his response time to addressing the Socialist bench, stating that it was the PS that left its successors the Green Paper on the Sustainability of Social Security, which advocates “exactly what the PS accuses [the Government] of wanting” to do.

Montenegro also said that the Government will now carry out an “in-depth analysis”, through a working group, of the study on the sustainability of Social Security, left by the previous Government and added that, if it is necessary to take any measures to give solidity to the Social Security system, the Government will have “the courage to say so to the country directly and to ask the country what response it will give”.

Raimundo had questioned the Prime Minister, as he had done in the last biweekly debate, what the government's intentions were, particularly regarding access to early retirement, and accused the executive of launching an “attack on workers' rights”, social security and new changes to labour laws.

“[The members of] the Government want more hours and they want more working time, they want even more precariousness and they want young people to work until the end, until the last days of their lives,” he said.

The Minister of Labour has already assured that the government will not touch “any acquired rights” regarding retirements, refusing to agree with the limitation on early retirements, and ruled out bringing forward future measures.

In turn, in statements to CNN Portugal, the Minister of Finance assured last Thursday that the Government will not make "any structural changes" to Social Security in this legislature.